Another defendant, according to Xinhua, had arranged the transplant and had been paid 220,000 yuan — about $35,000, according to Reuters — to do so. He paid the teenager just 22,000 of that, or about $3,500; the rest went to the surgeon, his staff and three other defendants, according to Xinhua.

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Reuters reported that other suspects in the case were still being investigated.

The teenager, from the poor Anhui province, said he had responded to an advertisement online about selling a kidney.

"I wanted to buy an iPad 2, but I didn't have the money," he told Shenzhen television, according to the Telegraph.

After the teen admitted where he had gotten the money to pay for his new gadgets, his mother went to police.

The organ trade has been illegal in China since 2007. But because there's such a demand in China for transplants, the organ black market thrives, Reuters reported.